There's a Limit to What Nationalism Can Do

American politics has a new organizing principle, according to a theory that has been making the rounds. Reaganism is dead. Our central debate no longer concerns big vs. small government, or traditionalism vs. progressivism on morals. Instead it pits nationalism against globalism.

R. R. Reno, the editor of the religious-conservative journal First Things, writes that President Donald Trump recognizes “the new schism in American life,” which “is about immigration, free trade and the broad and deep impacts of globalization on America’s economy and culture.” Reno is writing from a position of broad sympathy with Trump’s nationalism, but critics of that nationalism have argued similarly. David Brooks wrote last year that big vs. small government would give way to open vs. closed society.